Sorrow in Perfect Clouds
by Willowtreemuse
Summary: Hearing Quinn curse was like hearing Santana cry when she wasn't drunk and Brittany immediately knew she hated it. A different, AU -ish take on On My Way, and Faberry at the very heart!


Sorrow in Perfect Clouds

_Title taken from Rooftop by Melissa Mcclelland_

"Quinn, what are you doing up here?" Brittany's voice echoed and bounced over the rain-dampened cement, and she turned from the ledge, her hair slick against her forehead and a half picked-apart bagel in her hand. When she didn't immediately see the source of the sound she turned back to watch the clouds chase each other around the sky, even though she knew the other blonde would not let her hide for much longer. At least, not in plain sight - though in front of everyone else that was her favorite way to hide.

What was she doing? She could not fully figure out what brought her up to the rooftop, except for maybe a need to escape, as per usual. But it was something more than that this time, she could tell. There was a sickly beating to her heart, a growing empty hole in her stomach that demanded her attention, lest everything fall apart. The back of her neck tingled as she heard again "Quinn?" and this time Brittany was right behind her, her voice innocent and airy as ever to anyone else maybe, but Quinn could hear the fear in it. She knew that Brittany just _knew _people, and could probably feel the guilt wracking her body that she herself had yet to even name or acknowledge.

Quinn heaved out a sigh and took a step backwards, knowing that the one step back would be into Brittany's strong, secure arms. And once Brittany's limbs linked around her from behind, her chin resting atop her head, Quinn could feel the guilt at last as if it hadn't been hers before, as if before she had only been watching it swirl around and around her head, but Brittany's arms had grounded her. Brittany made her strong enough to accept the awful blame, without throwing herself over the edge. But oddly enough, Brittany was the only one who would let her feel all the guilt while also knowing it simply was not her own. It didn't belong to her. It belonged to the universe, and to bad karma, and to angry unicorns in the sky that were afraid to become Pegasus and fly…..that's something that Brittany would say, wise and ridiculous all at once.

Quinn closed her eyes and tried to imagine her friend saying these things into her ear, and making her laugh. But instead, she only saw darkness, and then what she thought was a flash of Rachel's prone and bloodied form in the hospital bed 4 floors down. She flinched, her eyes flew open and she tried to wrench herself from Brittany's arms, but Brittany only allowed her to swivel around before she embraced her again, pulling her sobbing form into her chest. The forgotten bagel dropped to the ground, and several birds Brittany didn't notice of before tried to dart for it, and she shooed them away with a quiet hiss and what she hopped was a mean face.

"When I wished for Rachel not to be able to go through with the wedding," Quinn choked into the fabric of her clothes, "I didn't fucking mean this!"

Hearing Quinn curse was like hearing Santana cry when she wasn't drunk and Brittany immediately knew she hated it. She pulled away just enough for Quinn to lift her head and look at her, and when their eyes met they both registered fear and longing and loss in the other pair, as if they were washing themselves over with each other's emotions and becoming one big, desperate mess.

Brittany struggled to hold it together though, for her Quinn. Whose Rachel was currently lying with broken legs and bruised skin, and other injuries neither wanted to think about, in a hospital bed 4 floors down.

She didn't tell Quinn it's not her fault, because there would be more harm than good in telling the truth to a girl who just wanted to feel the security of a terrible lie.

She didn't kiss her forehead, but she wanted to. She didn't let her go though, either. She traced circles on her back and she let Quinn cry it all out until eventually she found reason to ask again,

"What are you doing up here, Quinn?"

And Quinn felt at once that though she thought her reasoning was as simple as wanting to escape it all, it wasn't. She opened her mouth and a raw, new understanding of what she'd been doing on the roof - crying and cursing and tossing bagel bits off the ledge- came tumbling out.

"I hate them," she grumbled, pulling herself away from Brittany so harshly and suddenly that Brittany's arms allowed the release. She moved to stand by the ledge again, and if there wasn't a waist high wall Brittany probably would have screamed, or dove forward to grab her. But there was a wall, their saving grace, and Brittany watched Quinn lean against it from her newfound distance and look down.

"I HATE THEM," she repeated, spinning around to kick the bagel across the roof and then returning her face to the cold cement wall in nearly one motion. Brittany just winced and waited. She wasn't going to push anymore, not with Quinn so precariously placed.

"I hate these stupid birds that keep hanging around, I hate that I didn't want my bagel so I tossed some of it over the ledge and they followed it. Because they can do that, you know? They can just take a running leap– or hopping head start, whatever, and they can fly away and it's like this hospital never existed. Or they can fly overhead and crap all over all the stupid, lucky people down there who aren't up here, waiting for their best friend, no…fuck it, _the love of their life_ to DIE. They can go and scratch the eyes out of all those people down there, for all I care. Because right now I feel like no one else is feeling this. I feel like the world should be ending and I hate them."

She slowly lowered herself down to the ground, worn out from her confession, and crossed her legs and stared at the grey cement edge, the wall that now blocked her from the sky, the birds and the sun.

"If this hadn't happened she'd be married to Finn now. And I feel like a heartless bitch for thinking that'd mean I just lose either way. But that's our Quinn right? The heartless bitch?"

She was sobbing again, and Brittany hated her feet for telling her they couldn't move, or her brain for suddenly not liking her feet, she wasn't sure which. She just knew that her eyes and ears and her heart could see and hear and feel nothing but Quinn in that moment. She wasn't going to let Quinn go, even without the aid of physical touch.

"I love her Britt," she sobbed, "I love her and I don't want to. But I need to, I do, I need to love her because she makes me feel whole. I'm just so scared…I'm always so scared!"

Brittany finally found her legs at this confession, and she sat herself next to Quinn and threw herself on top of her so urgently anyone else would think she was the one who was in need of comfort – and in a way, she was. She pictured Santana sitting alone in a hospital chair, trying to deny her own strange kind of love for Rachel, and needing her, needing Brittany but not being quite ready to admit it…not just yet.

She pictured Santana being too scared to cry, to ashamed to show herself in front of other people, and she kissed the top of Quinn's head.

"Don't be scared of love, Quinn. That's a silly thing to be scared of when you could be praying for Rachel's legs."

It was said so simply that Quinn actually giggled through her tears,

"Thanks B," she hiccupped. And then, "do you think Rachel is going to be okay?"

"Rachel's going to be great! She's going to star on Broadway like we always knew she would – even though we kind of always hated it, and she's going to live in New York and be a star and – "

"That's not what I meant," Quinn interrupted, but Brittany tilted her head in response, confused.

"Yes it is, you wanted to know if Rachel was going to live and if she was going to walk again. I just answered both questions – did you think I'd be mean and suggest she'd have to take on Broadway in Artie's wheelchair?"

Quinn motioned that she wanted to stand and Brittany untangled them, then she pulled them both up. For a few moments, they just stood looking at each other.

"How do you do it, Britt?"

Again, Brittany wasn't following her train of thought exactly but her answer even still made a beautiful, perfect kind of sense,

"I just do."

As they headed down from the roof – Quinn refused the elevator because now was not the time to start feeling claustrophobic, and plus her legs needed the stretch – Brittany held Quinn's hand and squeezed at the bottom of every flight. She even hinted at the doorway that led to the hall of floor 4 that she was going to tell Finn he smelled or something, and that he should go take a shower, or that Timmy was stuck in the well and needed his help, just so Quinn could get some time to sit and watch Rachel on her own.

"Because she'll wake up for you Q. Her body knows how she feels, even if she doesn't quite yet, you know?"

"She will?" Quinn whispered, now peering into the room where the beautiful brunette looked so small (but not as small as Quinn herself sounded). Brittany's heart soared because she sensed Quinn's new hope.

"Yea, Quinn. I think she will."

* * *

**A/N: Prompt given by and shared with Kat ( ). It's a bit of an AU take on On My Way, of course, and I hope you all like it! It's probably the most poetic fan fiction I've written in a while, so...yea. Review if you could be so kind!**


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